CIO Magazine, May 15, 2005, Sunday

CIO Magazine
May 15, 2005

BOOK REVIEW
Small Book, Big Ideas
If you're playing corporate tug-of-war, get political know-how on your team
BY EDWARD PREWITT
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Get Them on Your Side: Convert Skeptics, Get Results
By Samuel B. Bacharach Adams Media, 2005, $19.95

Many CIOs already recognize the importance of political savvy (see "It's Politics, as Usual"). For everyone else, a single line from Samuel Bacharach's Get Them on Your Side says it all: "A good idea is not enough—you need political competence."

Although the author is a professor of organizational behavior at Cornell University's School of Industrial and Labor Relations, this how-to guide is anything but academic. In it, he lays out an 11-step process for achieving a goal, grouping the steps into three sections: map the political terrain, get others on your side and make things happen. The discussion of each step mingles anecdotes from business, government and nonprofit organizations (as well as a few family-life scenarios), with rubrics for understanding human interaction.

For instance, Bacharach says that regardless of a proposal's specifics, the person championing it can expect to be met with at least one of six objections, a list that includes "It will make things worse, not better," and "You don't know the issues well enough." Other lists are the four types of agendas and the four sources of personal credibility. Although they're all fairly obvious, together they form a comprehensive framework for political competence that holds up in many different contexts.

Its broad applicability is one of the book's strengths. Bacharach has been published widely in academic journals on management and organizational behavior, and he has written several textbooks on organizations and negotiation. Get Them on Your Side reflects the breadth of his knowledge. Yet he has also conducted numerous workshops with real executives, giving the book's examples a genuine feel.

Bacharach sometimes soft-pedals his arguments, but at other points he shows a Machiavellian streak, thereby exemplifying in his own writing the variety of techniques for getting people on your side and getting things done.